Dog
Survives Five Weeks in Desert Hole

Associated Press

TEMECULA, Calif. - A family who left their
dog for dead after a desert hiking accident
five weeks ago has been reunited with
the pooch after a Riverside County hiker
and his brother heard it barking and pulled
it from a 30-foot-deep pit.

Stephen Schwartz,
17, was hiking with his brother, father
and two cousins on April 18 near the ghost
town of Panamint City on the western edge
of Death Valley National Park when their
dog, Shadow, fell into the pit.

The Schwartzs heard
10-year-old Shadow whimpering and tried
to use an aluminum ladder from a nearby
ranger station to reach the dog. But the
ladder fell out of reach and eventually,
Shadow stopped responding to their calls.

Thinking the dog
was dead, the Schwartzs placed an improvised
wooden cross over the pit, said a prayer
and returned home to Trona, a tiny town
in far northern San Bernardino County.

But Shadow was
very much alive, surviving on water at
the bottom of the hole.

On Sunday, Temecula
resident Scott Mertz and his brother,
Darren Mertz, of Ridgecrest, were searching
for the source of a spring near Panamint
City.

They stumbled on
a deep, 4-foot-wide pit with a ladder
inside and a strange cross-like design
over it. Stopping to rest, the brothers
tossed rocks into the pit and dared each
other to climb inside. Then they heard
barking.

"We looked
at each other and my brother said, 'Is
that coming from the hole?'" Scott
Mertz, 36, said. "We were just horrified
that there was a dog down there."

His brother, Darren,
said: "We weren't going to leave
without the dog."

Using an old hose
from a nearby water storage tank, Darren,
34, lowered his brother into the hole
until he could reach the ladder and climb
down to the dog. Scott managed to grab
a frightened and skinny Shadow and his
brother hauled them back up.

The Mertz brothers
called the number on Shadow's tags and
told the Schwartzs their beloved pet had
been found 35 days after they left it
for dead.

"This tops
the list - I never felt so happy before,"
Stephen Schwartz said Tuesday. "I
prayed that I would see her again and
it happened."

The cocker spaniel-beagle
mix appears to be in good health despite
losing 5 pounds, he said.

"Last night,
she came up to me and started begging
for food like she always did," Schwartz
said.